Bandwagon.4512

This game was never really popular among AAA titles, whatever fizz was there was only there for first couple of years, when it launched, then it's been relegated to the faithful community of gamers who kept a playing, taking a break, playing cycle (i guess the number of people who still quit are higher than the new ones joining). If you wanna look at a game's popularity, check out any online streaming platforms, Twitch for example, a game like Black Desert Online, which i find to be more grindy and less fun to play than GW2 has, at the time of this writing, 4100+ viewers vs 703 on GW2.That, imho, says a lot about a game. Why is this the case....bad marketing, less events to get the community involved, less interaction from devs....idk, this is where GW2 has it's biggest challenge, it is clearly a AAA game which lacks the punch to stand up against other (even many sub-par MMO's) games.

Few days ago, we had a mesmer port into the keep inner walls and bring his troopers with him, there are way more hackers now than before, but i am sure the ban hammer will be hitting some people soon. Anet can be slow, but do take action. On that note, why people, why? Why do you find hacks good for a game, any game? It insta reminds me of people irl who love cutting queues and moving ahead of you, they clearly know you been standing there for your chance and they somehow think that they are smarter than you since they got themselves ahead of you, but all they do is annoy people who have been unfairly dealt with, you see it hurts that sense of fairness for others more than anything.

While on it's own, you have a point. Potato Pc's tend to be more laggy than the newer/latest configuration ones, BUT the recent report on lags have mostly been from players who have already been playing the game and with their same potato pc's , they have noticed a change...more lags than ever before! There are clear indications of lags not only in zerg fights like wvw, but even during mundane pve events which can be done solo.So, ping spikes and poor latency apart(ignoring any potatoes), the five major reasons for lags (as mentioned by a pc manufacturer) are-**_1. Internet service provider (ISP) quality Internet connection speedInadequate bandwidthConfiguration of firewallsGeographical location_**From that list, what do you think changed for you?

I think many here don't understand that there isn't much Anet can really do here, let me quote from a post i replied to on another thread-

Ever snce Anet moved to the AWS servers(part of their move to cut costs and 'improve' performance), there has been multiple people/sources who have told me that the way they run the servers are out of Anet's hands. Case in point, ever since Covid-19 struck, Amazon web servers have been prioritizing server load and maintaining speeds, pings/lags were given lower priority. Hence, i don't see any resolution to lags in the short to medium term, since it's really out of Anet's hands. I guess, we got to live with this new normal since Anet is just one of the many customers AWS has, albeit one of the smaller compared to others.

Like the meme goes, if it's not just you, but everyone, then it's not lags its a feature.

I play both NA and EU and lately there has been a marked increase in latency for the game overall. I believe one of the reasons was the damaged undersea cable which should have been repaired by now, but i can't find the current status, many sources say it is still pending repairshttps://subtelforum.com/apcn2-submarine-cable-has-been-damaged/ There are also other sources who have mentioned that currently the AWS (Amazon Web Services) servers are prioritizing speed and load and hence, pings have been given lower priority. This or any other reason, the point here is i wish this company had a # server health page to check where the issue lies with, if it was a local issues, i.e. AWS servers or and international, i.e. APCN2. Anet used to once give more priority to server health, but since the move to AWS it has always been treated second rate.

It's easy to not agree with it ... because it's nonsense. There is no way in hell all the WvW players are supporting the game with gem sales to such an extent for the lions share of dev time and effort to be put towards PVE content. The ocean doesn't have this much salt. And what about the people with feet in both ponds so to speak?> What about them? It doesn't change the fact that there isn't more revenue coming from WvW players keeping this game going for the benefit of PVE players like the poster wants us to think. That makes NO sense. The revenues are going to split approximately along the percentages of players in the game modes. If a player splits their time over more than one, so to does the revenue they contribute to the game. Anet knows where the money is coming from ... they are going to ensure those players are the most catered to. If the money was coming from WvW ... WvW would be getting updates ALL time. You mention that Anet seems to be driven by pure economics, then you seem to ignore the fact that server transfers are a huge cash cow for Anet, by your logic PVP,WVW and SPVP , the three end game modes are not populated by people spending on gems...well, its not a good assumption, why>?a. People spend money and play all game modes, the guys from wvw have been forced to pve to get stuff used on their equips, we all have time and time again gone on pve maps to farm for our shinies!b. The fact that you trust Anet to make correct decisions about picking the right area to spend their time and efforts on, are essentially what this post is all about, they ignored plain and simple the 3 end game modes everyone have mentioned on this post and focused only on living story and raids, now i don't know how many exactly raid, but i can tell you one thing for a fact, the raiders are so exclusive a club of people that they literally have one main discord channel and forming parties are a nightmare in the waiting, so many pay to carry them. I really dont think such a small percentage of the player base needs to get as many updates as Anet have given out so far.c. Also, finally, it is not healthy for any game to ignore not one but 3 game modes and focus on 1, especially since player population are what a company who is offering a free MMO is looking for, if you want numbers, then competitive game modes are what everyone is selling in the market. You can call the living story competitive, if you want, since that's your logic of how economics of scale work. But out there in the real world, every f2p game company needs more players, money will come if there is a momentum, but sadly, expecting players to focus on one game mode aka pve is certainly short sighted and lacking any sort of vision. I'm not ignoring anything. The reality is that if WvW players were bringing in the majority of the revenue, Anet would be plowing their investments back into it to keep that revenue flowing. That's not happening, so it's REALLY easy to conclude where the money is not coming from. You don't even need to think very hard here. Just imagine what the game would look like if 100% of the revenue came from WvW players ... nobody with a clue would think Anet is investing any significant amount of effort, time or money in PVE or PVP if that was the case. That shouldn't be a logical Chasm for anyone to understand. Yet here we are ... a whole bunch people thinking most of the money comes from WvW players while almost no WvW developments are being made. It's certainly not aiding any agenda people may have to get Anet to pay more attention to WvW. If you can't admit this is the case, you don't have a case to make. I will just copy paste what i wrote earlierc. Also, finally, it is not healthy for any game to ignore not one but 3 game modes and focus on 1, especially since player population are what a company who is offering a free MMO is looking for, if you want numbers, then competitive game modes are what everyone is selling in the market. You can call the living story competitive, if you want, since that's your logic of how economics of scale work. But out there in the real world, every f2p game company needs more players, money will come if there is a momentum, but sadly, expecting players to focus on one game mode aka pve is certainly short sighted and lacking any sort of vision.So no, i never mentioned that 100% or heck even 50% of the revenues were coming from WVW, what i mentioned was you are running a game based on player hours put in, And on all three game modes, Spvp/Pvp/Wvw , and especially WVW people have put in much longer hours than your average maps, if you want to ignore player hours in a f2p game and are focused on the Pve maps alone(where admittedly the players tend to stay only on the current loot meta) , then i have only one thing to tell you...I'm happy that you will get a chance to enjoy some new and exciting content going to be revealed on the 30th Aug, enjoy the game!Also, how does PVE map correlate to spending on Gems?? You mean no one else buys that shiny mount or cool looking armor, just the players who are focused on PVE maps do it? I hope you meant what you typed and are not trolling, i really do.

Blackgate is A reason NA is dying but not because they are stacked or are better. Simply put, not enough people want to organize a server to do what it would take to take down Blackgate. A handful of servers have stacked and pushed Blackgate into hibernation, then that server realizes they don't actually care about 1st and start to destack. Blackgate comes out of hibernation and its back to business as usual. Its part of the fundamental problem with WvW. How is WvW supposed to be played? Why is my 20 man group more right than cookies map queue? Were cookies players better then yours or is it just a failure to adapt? Because "fun"? Who defines fun? Want Blackgate to die? Stack 3 servers and 2v1 them for the next 6 mouths. The fair weathers will leave and there isn't very many "server pride" people left. If 6 months isn't long enough, keep going...Blackgate has been doing it since ~2012. What's killing NA more are the "fight guilds" that constantly swap servers and destroy the servers when they leave. Every single solitary time it's happened, that particular server ends up in T4 and is basically stuck there. Nothing to do with BG, but has everything to do with guilds joining a server, pillaging it, then leaving it, making it so the pugs or casuals or whoever else doesn't log into WvW on a regular basis, loses complete interest. The one thing that separates BG from everybody else is they seem to have a huge pug population or a population players that aren't hardcore guildies that will log on, and log on for many hours at a time. Every other server doesn't seem to have this; again, because these "fight guilds" that constantly jump, destroy the server. You'd be shocked to see just how many more players, guilds, and commanders are sitting on the neighboring T1 server. They grossly outnumber BG by a mile, but the exception is, they only seem to like to play on the weekends. That's not BG's problem, that's a player problem.I wish i could believe what i was reading, i wish this were 2012, but sadly, you should play more on your alt accounts to understand better how other servers play than premise that every other server has only so called fight guilds and very little pugs(two servers off-mind i can think off who boasted about their pug quality and numbers were Jq and Mag), or even implying that the pugs on Bg seem to be so superior that they destroy the fight guilds to maintain a positive KD 24/7.In plain an simple terms, while everything everyone mentioned is a valid point, aka, too many bandwagon, not enough organised etc, the actual and real truth is Bg has a massive coverage across almost every time zone. They are able to add numbers to their fight guilds, have pugs on every map and literally have scouts for every tower and in some cases camps all the time, you will find it hard to ninja a t3, not because of Bg's superior fight skills, but for a simple reason they just got the numbers and the population to sustain such things. Other servers, no matter how organised they get just cannot sustain with the dying population on the game anymore, im sure it hurts to an extent on Bg too, but well, lets just say Bg, you been well fed and taken care of by your parent all these years, if anyone is going to die last, it will be you. I dont see how there will be any real T1 server in NA other than Bg for the next foreseeable future.

Why is BG open? I just watched them flip everything we had without opposition. Sometimes I think Anet loves rigging one sided fights just to mock us. Why do they even have a link? They know we know that BG is stacked. Yet they give BG another open transfer. At his point, they should just get rid of WvW. It's a wasted game mode. It's not fun to fight in a rigged game every single week for months and months. Oh, but they did give us a new set of really ugly weapon skins.....thanks Anet. I love more kitten skins I'll never use. BG closed less than 48 hours after it opened. It’s not open.Please accept my heartfelt condolences for being open for only 2 days, Anet needs to do better than this......

It's easy to not agree with it ... because it's nonsense. There is no way in hell all the WvW players are supporting the game with gem sales to such an extent for the lions share of dev time and effort to be put towards PVE content. The ocean doesn't have this much salt. And what about the people with feet in both ponds so to speak?> What about them? It doesn't change the fact that there isn't more revenue coming from WvW players keeping this game going for the benefit of PVE players like the poster wants us to think. That makes NO sense. The revenues are going to split approximately along the percentages of players in the game modes. If a player splits their time over more than one, so to does the revenue they contribute to the game. Anet knows where the money is coming from ... they are going to ensure those players are the most catered to. If the money was coming from WvW ... WvW would be getting updates ALL time. You mention that Anet seems to be driven by pure economics, then you seem to ignore the fact that server transfers are a huge cash cow for Anet, by your logic PVP,WVW and SPVP , the three end game modes are not populated by people spending on gems...well, its not a good assumption, why>?a. People spend money and play all game modes, the guys from wvw have been forced to pve to get stuff used on their equips, we all have time and time again gone on pve maps to farm for our shinies!b. The fact that you trust Anet to make correct decisions about picking the right area to spend their time and efforts on, are essentially what this post is all about, they ignored plain and simple the 3 end game modes everyone have mentioned on this post and focused only on living story and raids, now i don't know how many exactly raid, but i can tell you one thing for a fact, the raiders are so exclusive a club of people that they literally have one main discord channel and forming parties are a nightmare in the waiting, so many pay to carry them. I really dont think such a small percentage of the player base needs to get as many updates as Anet have given out so far.c. Also, finally, it is not healthy for any game to ignore not one but 3 game modes and focus on 1, especially since player population are what a company who is offering a free MMO is looking for, if you want numbers, then competitive game modes are what everyone is selling in the market. You can call the living story competitive, if you want, since that's your logic of how economics of scale work. But out there in the real world, every f2p game company needs more players, money will come if there is a momentum, but sadly, expecting players to focus on one game mode aka pve is certainly short sighted and lacking any sort of vision.

Most people hate BG because of their playstyle. The server that cares the most about PPT is obviously BG...I mean come on. Against BG, you can only get a fight with them if you attack their sieged up, tiered up objectives. At which point they will blob you down with 40+ then never even leave the objective afterward for open field fights. It's the best way to "win" but it's incredibly boring only fighting the "#1 server" when they have every advantage under the sun. Numbers, objective auras, tactivators, siege, etc. With cookie gone, there's not even anybody to fight anymore. Sorry but some BG people seem straight up delusional if they really can't see this. Again, the commanders largely avoid capping stuff and run around looking for fights (or attack something to draw the enemy group to them or to the map). The problem seems to be that unless the player is part of a guild that runs with their commander (usually the weekend and occasionally) during the week, a "pug" player will look at WvW as largely empty or outnumbered (unless they are on BG). This isn't BG's fault, this is the fault of the players, guilds, and their commanders that refuse to play. So if a player looks over at BG and thinks "wow that's a large group, way larger than what we have at the moment; they are typically blobbing and overstacked" The question now becomes, where are all those players and commanders that play on the weekend that grossly outnumber BG? How about instead of complaining about BG being overstacked (when they actually have less numbers than the other server in T1, plus a couple that routinely rotate up), instead, when these commanders and all those guildies pop on the weekend, give them the 3rd degree and tell them that they are the problem, and the reason why BG keeps winning. Tell them they are the core issue with their lackluster playtime. Tell them to stop complaining, get off their butts, log on and do something about it during the week. Instead of playing only on the weekend, blobbing the other servers down when they don't even have half as many on. Then running or logging off when they get any type of competition. If that fails, collectively you guys should be bullying these guilds and commanders off your server so it'll open up so perhaps you might get some players that will actually play regularly instead of 2x per week. It'd also help if these "fight guilds" stopped server hopping, as all they're doing is destroying each server they come across, then complain that BG is problem, when in actuality it's them wrecking it for everybody else. Those people don't play much in T1 because as I explained, they hate BG's play style. Why do so many NA servers universally hate "fighting" BG? Is it because BG is simply that good? Please...this isn't that complex of a game. It's because of how that server plays. It is not really about Bg play style or any OP ninja tactics they got, many of the BG top players have EU alts and get a very good competition there, so no, they are no untouchable or oh so good. It's just that Bg as a server has been given a favored child status for both server opening and world transfers, they so over stacked that anyone who wants to play NA T1 just wants to transfer to Bg, cause really, they dont have any other good server to transfer to in NA. There is no T1 server, only temporary wannabe's who come and get farmed by blobgate

I will address two things here-First, i am not saying WVW is Better than PVE or vice versa, what i am mentioning is the way people play this game, while someone posted and mentioned that world boss and meta trains are end game content for them, i disagree completely, i know a lot of people regularly farm the meta maps and do world bosses, but a healthy 80% of that group is doing because they have a goal for farming, like get amalgamated gemstone for their legendary or acquire 250 of X items for their collection, i do also acknowledge the fact that people do these maps to farm gold, but again, this is goal oriented. I wouldn't say the same about WVW, why? Because when you login to wvw maps you know its only to kick the enemy arse and do the daily along the way, you do not get any profit playing wvw, yet everyone knows the amount of time an average wvw player puts in is easily more than any pve player spends on his farm(this includes the 2hrs+ spent at dragonstand).Secondly, i know a lot of people spent a lot of gold and money in wvw, easily equal to or more than pve. how you say? well thats because the guild/players transfer around a lot in both NA and EU world and every transfer costs easily whatever low level skin you can pick off the gem store, multiply that by 20-40 of a guild then you get a winner. Anet has made a lot of money on world transfers, this is and has always been a wvw cash cow for Anet. To conclude, i would say that endgame content is needed to keep people hooked, you can get new players by fancy CGI movies and have them play living story whole day,but when the dust settles down, you need them to play competitive modes, which is where a lot of other games excel. GW2 has a unique usp called wvw, they ignored it forever with hand me downs from PVE and did nothing, wvw is dead/dying today, depending on NA/EU, but it could have been much more than this!

R u 1st time poster or r u rlly spy acct who afraid 2 use main acct 2 say these stuffs? i am a mix of all of the above. Also, at this point, no one cares about being afraid. Being a non main account means, people dont view you from any individual server/guild based mind set and hey, this is all about viewing your thoughts, dont matter who says it, right>

I agree with you about the wvw rewards being lackluster to hand me downs from PVE, at best. But if you are a veteran of wvw, you would see most guilds/people pay from their pocket to keep playing the game, they are not driven by loot. That is one big factor, which is different from other game modes. Heck, even pvp earns you gold/loot much more than any wvw guy could ever earn, but like it as much as i can, i still love wvw more.....to me, playing wvw is never a chore, unlike that achieve i need to get on pve, which is not something i ever want to repeat unless i am driven again by the loot incentive.

Agreed on PVE being the number one draw factor for gw2, but what keeps them playing after they do the latest Living Story or PVE map is what i am mentioning as end game modes. No one keeps playing LS again and again...they just play it for the achieves/lore/loot etc, not for the joy of the game. Once, those few weeks are over, you would find most new maps dead, like not a soul in sight dead! Wait for metas to start to see people again(now a days many meta maps also dont have enough to win)So you see, if you want to retain the new arrivals, you need to keep them hooked on end game content, like wvw, they can play everyday and it wont be so repetitive.

When this game launched some years back, i still remember the devs talking about the new fight mode called wvw. We never saw anything like that in GW1 and i was super excited with the hype and indeed, when the game launched, wvw delivered even with its flaws, it was an amazing game mode.Essentially, WVW was the end game mode for most of the players, we play this game mostly in WVWSo my question @Anet is WHY did you guys lose focus from the end game and spent all your energy on living story content....i believe even though it is the absolute best thing created after bread and jam, the new LS is talked about only for 1-2 months more after its launched. Me, i have only played each episode on 1-3 of my toons, never more than that since the rewards tend to be account bound and i get most of my achievements this way. SO, after the LS is played by all the players in 1-2 months, what do they do next, do they quit and wait for Anet to launch the next LS? No, what they do is return to end game mode like wvw, something you can play everyday and enjoy. Anet, you put all your energy for temporary game modes and wasted your efforts with marketing something people forget in a week or two, IF only you had spent half the energy and resources on end game modes, this game would have been something else. RIP GW2, you lived a good life.

But EU is far far better than NA. BG was the Frankenstein Anet created, they kept other T1 servers closed while encouraging multiple transfer windows to BG, this they continued to do even when they had data on hand showing multiple X (think 5-6X range, i forget now) the population of BG compared to its nearest competitor. Now after so many years, when everyone playing T1 in NA knows BG is still overstacked and hard to fight because of having huge numbers and way better coverage across most time zones, Anet not only keeps giving Bg links, but even went ahead to open up the server. I do not understand how gems alone can be a factor for wvw servers?Thankfully, the so called devs didnt create a Bg on EU, you will find healthy transfers here(i believe due to this healthy competition the transfers are more on EU than NA). On NA there is no competition, every T1 server (exception being BG ofc) has huge coverage problems and now that people have grown frustrated to a point that they are quiting en masse, there are no fights, since everyone just go to back cap what Bg zerged.Essentially we are now playing EOTM 2.0.